


All The Secrets And No One To Tell

by MissEllaVation



Category: U2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 05:57:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissEllaVation/pseuds/MissEllaVation
Summary: They are about to go home, and they just really love each other.





	All The Secrets And No One To Tell

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my small tale of the end of the ZooTV Tour, in Tokyo, in December, 1993. I did no research for this. I just wanted to write a kind of sexy, emo little thing. I’m sort of pretending the guys hung around the city an extra night or three, while the stage was being dismantled and all their stuff was being shipped home. Did it really really happen this way? I don’t care. As ever, I am all about the LoVE. This is in Edge’s POV, so be prepared for unhinged Bono-worship. (Thank you Edge, and I’m sorry.) Anyway, I think I’m done with the early 90s for now. 
> 
> Thanks to all the usual suspects, as well as the mysterious people who land here on occasion. Special thanks to likeamadonna for support and encouragement above and beyond the call of duty (xoxoxo)!!!
> 
> Finally, it’s possible that Bono comes across a bit GIRLY™® here. Ha ha ha ha ha I hate everything. I actually delayed posting this due to Bono’s latest unforgivable faux pas.
> 
> Happy New Year, my dears!

I know I shouldn’t smoke, but I seem to have acquired the habit by osmosis, maybe because the taste of tobacco, that sticky, tarry compound of hunger and need, has passed through your skin into mine.

Not sure what time it is. Somewhere between very late and very early. No stars tonight, but the neon signs have painted the undersides of the clouds with streaks of red and green. If I tilt my head back the buildings fall away, and the lighted windows form imperfect grids and matrices. In this city, my eyes are always expecting order and not quite finding it.

I stub out the cigarette. I’m just about to turn around and go inside when you appear at last, a small, dark phantom on the sidewalk.

“Edge.”

At this point in our history, my heart should not give a little skip when you say my name. And yet it does.

“Bono. You’re a sight. Where’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know. Just over there, at the end of the world.”

“You’re playing our song.”

“I always am.”

A quick glance up and down the sidestreet. Empty. “Come here.” I pull you around the corner, out of sight of the bank of sliding glass hotel doors, the carefully indifferent doormen, the sleepy taxi drivers. Take you in my arms. Your hands, when they meet on the back of my neck, are cold.

“Don’t let go of me, Edge.”

“Never.”

“Why do you let me wander around lost half the night?”

“How could I possibly stop you?”

“I think you could if you wanted to.”

“Bono.” I kiss your damp hair. You smell of rain and tea shops, plum wine and sake. “Why do you _want_ to wander around lost half the night?”

“You know why. I wanted to give you and Morleigh a little room, to—”

“Oh bollocks. You’d go out anyway.”

“To a certain extent, yes.”

“To all the extents. We’ve been on this tour for about two thousand years. I think I know what you’re all about by now, mate.”

I can feel you smiling against my shoulder. “What am I all about, The Edge?”

“Chaos. Entropy. The center cannot hold.”

“Edge.”

I can’t seem to pull you close enough to me. “Oh, you’re a rough creature, Bono. Slouching towards Bethlehem.”

“Yeah, I know.

“At least you know. Kiss me, and then let’s go inside.”

I’m expecting a perfunctory sort of outdoor kiss, a kiss that wouldn’t look too alarming in a city where people don’t really touch each other in public. What I get is something open and raw, starting with a hoarse little cry, flavored with tobacco and wine and the sooty night air. You. Your cold hands, your warm chest, your thigh pressed against mine. A great hard kiss that, when I pursue it, turns suddenly delicate and teasing.

“Bono…”

You lean away and smile at me, all dimples and chin. You think you’re in control of your audience, but I know better. I look only at your eyes.

“You still want me, Edge.” A statement, but also a question.

 

***

In the outer room of my suite, a row of packed suitcases in gray and black. My guitars and my gear have been shipped home ahead of me, by others. The overall feeling is that a very neat, efficient apocalypse has taken place; that something has come to an end. The world, maybe. Not with a bang but a whimper.

“It feels sort of sterile in here, doesn’t it, B?”

“A little. But _I_ don’t!” You shrug out of your leather jacket, throw it on a chair. “In fact, I feel pretty filthy from all my meanderings.”

“That’s how I like you best. Pretty filthy.” I come up behind you, put my arms around you. Snake one hand up under your shirt, my fingers seeking the thick, soft hair at the center of your chest, then your left nipple. You growl quietly. It’s no use. No matter what happens, no matter who else comes along, I’m never going to stop wanting you. My fate is sealed. I press a kiss to the nape of your neck. “Got a treat for you.”

“Yeah? Woof woof.”

“Bono.”

“It’s a good name for a dog, you must admit. _Bono_. Come to think of it, so is Edge.”

“If you think about too hard about this subject, you'll end up feeling like you’re on ‘shrooms, trying to make sense of the pattern in the carpet.”

“I know. I’ve already thought about it plenty. ‘Who am I? No, who am I _really_.’ Etcetera.”

“Well, it’s too late now to ever be Paul and Dave again.” I stifle my next thought, about this ethereal Paul and his ghostly friend Dave, an English teacher and a doctor maybe, with nice comfy wives—and a secret burning passion for each other. There aren’t enough hours left in the night for flights of fancy. With my free hand, I pluck up a small white bakery box from the top of the bureau. “Have some daifuku.”

“For me?”

“Obviously for you.”

“You're a saint. Let’s eat them in bed.”

“Wherever you like, my sybaritic friend.”

“You make it sound like I have a communicable disease.”

“If the shoe fits…”

You are a delight to watch; tearing yourself away from me, flinging yourself onto the bed, kicking off your boots at the last second, twisting around to punch the pillows into shape. “Bring me my rice balls, if you please.”

“I beg your pardon. They are not rice balls, they are daifuku. Very fancy. They’ve got red bean paste and strawberries inside.”

“Then bring me the fancy daifuku, and lie down beside me.”

“I live to serve.”

I stretch out alongside you on the immaculate bed. This hotel is so relentlessly clean that I can’t help but feel guilty over how we’ve sullied the rooms night after night. Mine, yours. Well—I suppose I don’t feel that guilty. Not guilty enough to stop sullying things.

You eye the little bakery box with pure lust. “Put your balls in my mouth, Edge. Come on.”

“My God, would you ever shut the fuck up?”

“No. I would not ever.”

“Even if I put my balls—”

“Maybe.”

I select a daifuku from the box and hold it to your lips. Watch your lips open and then close around it. The small sound of pleasure from deep in your throat. You close your eyes and I can see you savoring all the textures and flavors of that little treat: sugary, floury, tart, juicy. I lay my hand on the side of your neck so I can feel you swallowing. A strange thing to do, but then all the particulars of your body fascinate me, because that is how much I want you. And yes Bono, I still want you. In case you were really wondering out there on the street. I want you. Sometimes I ache with it.

“You’re beautiful, B.”

You always laugh when I say that. Then you argue with me. Every time.

“You’re mad. I’m not beautiful. I’m quite funny-looking.”

“Oh please.”

“Well, maybe I’m beautiful from certain angles, if the light is good. From other angles, I look like a con-man hanging around a Greyhound station at midnight.”

I open the buttons of your shirt with my left hand (more competent than my right) and let my palm rest on the slight swell of your belly. Warm, perfect. Furry. “Do con-men really hang around Greyhound stations, Bono?”

Almost imperceptibly, you push your body up to meet my hand. “Well, maybe they hang around the bar across the street from the Greyhound station. Anyway, you’re the beautiful one, Edge.” You stroke my cheek; your eyes go dark and soft. “Always have been.”

“Sweetheart. No.”

“Sweetheart, yes. With that noble profile of yours. You look just like Jesus, floating up to the bar in a circle of light. To save the con-man’s soul.”

Somehow my hand has slipped down to your belt buckle. “Can we leave Jesus out of this right now?”

“Ha. If I had a dime for every time someone has said that to me—”

Your lips hold a trace of sugar and mochi flour, your tongue tastes of strawberries. You get me entangled somehow in my own t-shirt, but then you free me and fling it across the room. My ubiquitous hat follows. You press your lips to my forehead. You whisper in my ear. “Gorgeous The Edge, slender The Edge. I want to put my hands all over your body.”

“Please, go ahead.” But I don’t even give you a chance, do I. Just slide down the surface of you till I’m face to face with your hip, then your knee. I throw your jeans across the room to join my shirt in a little heap. “The state of your socks, my love, is shocking.”

“No fair, Edge. All my sock money went into extra batteries for the big remote control.”

“Did it now.”

“Also, I stepped into a puddle a couple of hours ago. It looked deceptively shallow.”

“Deceptively shallow,” I murmur against your thigh, “would have been a good name for this tour.”

“It would’ve. Edge…why is it still like this between us?”

I don’t have to ask what you mean by that. “I don’t know. I guess I try not to question it.”

“But can you love _two_ people this way?”

I know this has been bothering you for a while, and I must admit I think it’s unfair—you being safely, prominently married all this time, me drifting along unmoored. This is a furtive thing we have between us, invisible but necessary. The underground foundation of a beautiful art deco skyscraper. But this other part of me—the old Edge, or the original Dave—has needs as well. “I don’t know, Bono. How’ve _you_ been doing it?”

“I’ve been at it for years now. But you’re in the new, exciting bit with Morleigh. It’s bound to take you over.”

“Yes. But not completely.” Because in truth, Bono, if I could choose a place to die, it would be right here, with my cheek cradled on your hip and your hand stroking my hair. “You’re under my skin, B.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, like a poorly-done tattoo. I’m marked.”

“Ha! ‘Poorly-done’ is the key detail, is it?”

“That’s right. And don’t pretend to be Mr. Pitiful now. I’ve spent years putting up with all your flirting and your mysterious disappearances.”

“You know I can’t say no to anything.”

“Is that right.” I turn my face toward your cock, perfect and hard. Consider what to do about it. So many options.

“I don’t want to go home, Edge.”

“Of course you do.”

“I don’t know how I’m gonna do it.”

“Neither do I. But we have to manage it. You, at least…you’ve got a good home to go to.”

“I know.”

“Well.” I don’t want to have this conversation. I want to pretend we’ve got more shows to play, more cities, more countries. You and me, play-acting our relationship on stage because it’s an oddly comfortable rockstar tradition by now—David Bowie and Mick Ronson, Mick and Keith, those guys from Aerosmith maybe. No one thinks anything of it these days. It’s just funny. Manly men are we, one and all, even Bowie ultimately, surrounded by small tribes of women and children.

But that isn’t us. Well, it is and it isn’t. We’re play-acting reality, but no one knows it. I suppose we do need some kind of plan for what we’ll do when we get home. How we’ll continue.

“Edge.”

“Yes.”

“Stop gazing mournfully at my cock. Let’s just fuck.”

“Jesus. Why do I even _know_ you? What did I ever do to deserve this torment?”

***

What indeed. You say you feel lonely with me all the way down there. You say I’m more than welcome to go back down there of course, in a little while, but for the moment you want to hold me in your arms, you want kisses, you want solidity and human contact.

“On a small scale, Edge. Because 80 thousand strangers’ faces can only do so much for a guy.”

If anyone else on earth understands that, it’s me.

You press the last daifuku into my mouth. Then comes a swoon of strawberry and red bean kisses. I don’t think I’ve ever known a woman who likes to kiss as much as you do, but then I haven’t known _that_ many women. You must be an utter delight to them—to the women. I mean, to Ali of course. If I don’t stop thinking this way I might cry. Maybe you’d like that.

I feel—kissing you—that you’re this dark, unknowable thing (yet who knows you better than I do?) You’re a flower from space and I’m a terrestrial bird trying to find the center, but the center keeps shifting. Wouldn’t the women laugh if they could hear my thoughts? Bono as a flower, hilarious.

“Edge, my God. Are you this ardent and tender with the ladies? Why are you laughing?”

I’m laughing because it’s _you_ who can hear my thoughts. Of course it is.

***

“Turn over.”

You do, with a luxurious little sigh. And almost immediately I miss your face. Your profile against the pillow is pretty good of course, but I need a Mercator projection of you, so I can see all of you at once.

I sweep your hair away from the back of your neck. Take my time deciding where I want to press my lips. A little to one side, just below your left ear. You like that. I use my teeth just a bit, gently. You lift your chin to make your neck more available to me. What I love best are the contradictions of you—how powerful you are in public, how vulnerable you’re willing to be when we’re alone.

A ripple goes through your body, from your gorgeous wide shoulders, down your spine, to the small of your back. I trace the ripple’s path with my fingers, trying to make it happen again. It does. You are so goddamn precious to me. I hope the trail of kisses I’m planting from the silky hollow between your shoulder blades down to the improbably lovely swell of your arse is enough to convey that.

“Edge.”

“Yes. Say it. I want to hear it.”

“I love you.”

Not what I was expecting. But maybe even better. The one thing we don’t say much. I have to close my eyes, rest my head a moment on your warm back. “I love you too. Please don’t crack the obligatory joke.”

“Wasn’t going to.”

I can see you smiling, even with my eyes closed.

I feel oddly light, almost blissful, as I get us ready, as if I actually believe in a near future that will make a space for us, where everyone will be happy, where no one will feel hurt, and everything will make perfect sense.

Then, a deep surge of pleasure as you take me in. “Oh. You pretty darling. You angel.”

“Talk to me, Edge.”

“I want to remember this night, B. I want _you_ to remember.”

You stop moving. In fact, you freeze. “Remember?”

Because you think—oh God. “No, no. Sweetheart. I just mean, the last night of the tour, our last night away from home. After all this craziness, you know. This should be special. That’s all.” I’m an idiot. I bury my face in your hair, kiss your neck, your shoulders, until I feel you relax again, in increments.

“I remember _everything_ , Edge. Everything.”

“I know you do. I know.” My love, allow me to start over. “Do you understand how much I want you?”

“Tell me.”

“Can you feel it?”

“Oh. Yes Edge.”

“Then you know. You have to know. I would never stop, Bono. If I could, I would just keep fucking you.”

“Edge. Keep talking to me.”

“I would fuck you. Just like this. Like I’m fucking you right now. I would fuck you. Night and day.”

“Edge.”

“Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“The world could burn. I wouldn’t care. I’d keep fucking you. Just. Like this.”

You like this a lot, I think. A little blasphemy, a little destruction. And you, the center of it all. The side of your face. Your damp hair falling across your eyes. Your mouth open. The deep line alongside your nose that makes you look like you’re snarling. Your neck. Every tendon, every vein at the surface. Asking for my teeth. I’m doing this to you. Again. Somehow.

I’m aware of the light changing in the room as the night recedes. Other than that, only our rhythm, your warmth, your little and big cries of pleasure. Who knows you like I do? Who could? I’ve been studying you for years. You’re my calling, my vocation, my music, my voice, my frontman.

“My beautiful boy.”

“Beautiful Edge…”

I take your cock in my hand. So good. To feel you coming, inside and out, your come flowing over my fingers while I’m deep inside you, and this is it, you have to believe me Bono, there are good things in this world, and beautiful women, but nothing like this, nothing quite like this, nothing like you, nothing like your voice repeating my name, nothing like this hard, dark, obliterating pleasure.

***

I wake to the sounds of traffic and water splashing. Pink light at the window. You must have opened the drapes; you love to see the sun rise in every city.

I drift off again for a few minutes, then you emerge from the bathroom, a white-robed, black-haired satyr. “Going home today.” Only your smile looks a bit pasted-on.

“Get over here. Lie down. Just for a minute.”

“I won’t argue.”

“For once.” I spoon you, press my naked, funky body to your terry-draped, soap-scented one. “I just had an amazing dream, B.”

“Yeah? Tell me. I could use some new dreams.”

“Oh sweetheart. Well, the four of us—not the band, I mean you, me, and Ali and Morleigh—were dancing together somewhere. Some ideal club with blue lights, and gold-leaf constellations on the ceiling, and sublime music. I think I composed the music in my sleep. It was monumental. I wish I could get it back. Anyway, I had that feeling of bliss you can sometimes get in a dream. Everyone was smiling at everyone else. Everyone knew everything, and everyone was happy. The ladies were dazzling, like nymphs. There were no secrets. Just this sense of perfect mutual connection and acceptance.”

“Like heaven must be.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Nothing much to say after that. The sun climbs a bit higher, piercing the crazily dramatic clouds, painting the glass office buildings with all the colors of grapefruit, as if we’re on a planet with more than one sun.

You roll over and fix me with your Blue Gaze of Death. “Well Edge, my beauty, we have to get a move on.”

“Jesus Christ Bono, you’ve even got freckles on your left eyelid. How did I only just notice?”

“Edge.” You kiss the tip of my nose, my lips. You nip my chin gently with your teeth.

“Babe.”

“No no, no time for that.” You bat my hands away and roll over and stand up; give a little sigh of resignation. “I hope that dream wasn’t just a dream, The Edge, but a vision of the near future.”

“Let’s say it is, Bono. A vision. Let _me_ be the visionary. Just for today.”

_Fin :)_


End file.
